I hit Fantasia Film Fest running with a survival horror-comedy called Hold the Fort: my introduction to William Bagley’s work. The film follows new homeowners, Lucas (Chris Mayers) and Jenny (Haley Leary), who find themselves alongside their neighbors, on the offensive against a variety of monsters from hell. Hold the Fort wraps its unique plot in the familiar cloth of protagonists defending one location, and it has plenty of fun with it. From the beautifully bloody effects to the wild one-liners, there’s a lot to enjoy.
However, the pacing, characters, and script choices left me baffled and threatened to pull me from my seat at times. It’s also light on scares and tension, opting to lean more into gore and comedy. Blood, guts, and ass are an easy sell for horror fans. With humor, it’s far more difficult to please the masses. If the comedy doesn’t work for you, then it will be a chore to make it through the film. If the jokes hit, then you’ll be in for a party (just don’t eat the cheese sticks).
Hot and Cold Pacing
The opening is quick and sets up enough to drop the viewer into this new world without excessive text or a voice-over of exposition. Before we meet our protagonists, we know there’s danger and it’s deadly; we drop a body before the opening credits! After we get a glance at the mundane, yet questionable activities of the neighbors, Lucas and Jenny are introduced. Within 5 minutes, they are already in the clubhouse of doom. It doesn’t take long for monsters to pull up (they show up early, because they’re professionals), and the first wave is defeated quickly…too quickly.
The first creatures looked cool, but I wanted to see more of a fight with them. Also, quite a few nameless neighbors die. I usually do not complain about people dying. However, too many people kicked the bucket without a name or a line. Some heads exploded (that was cool), glass shattered, and when I looked up, there were only a handful of survivors left. The film tries to drive emotional moments with our remaining characters. Sadly, some of them fall short due to timing or line delivery.
Character Building Experiences
Hold the Fort offers some interesting characters, but we don’t get the time we deserve with them. When horror films adopt defending one location as a set-up, the characters tend to do some of the heavy lifting. The script kills off a lot of the characters without giving them proper ( or any) depth. There are two neighbors with a chaotic (and probably drug-induced) vibe that I would have loved more time with. The older married couple were mostly delightful together, but they spent most of the action separated.
There was a lot of focus on Lucas, yet I was the least interested in him of all. Admittedly, it is hard for me to root for cowards in a movie (even if I would also run away from hell spawn). Lucas seems to flop more than he succeeds, which is frustrating because he’s trying to make up for putting the group in the current situation. I empathize with Lucas, because no one would predict that their new home is next to a hell mouth, and you’re supposed to defend your town like Attack the Block once a year! That situation is unreasonable, and that’s not on him.
Lucas the Menace
The fact that Lucas snuck that HOA agreement right past Jenny without discussing it with her, knowing her position, put a stain on his character from the beginning. When she brought up her discomfort, he dismissed her. He is seen forcing her to be polite after putting her in an uncomfortable situation. I wanted Jenny to break up with Lucas ( I know I only just met this couple), so any romance elements between them fell flat. To be fair, romance elements do not have a high success rate with me. I was having some success with Annette (Michelle Lamb Nixon) and Ted (Levi Burdick), but that was snatched away from me.
I have mixed feelings about McScruffy (Hamid-Reza Benjamin Brown). He was fun to watch ( I love an overpowered action hero), but inactive for most of the film. More importantly, the script left him to be a trope: I hated that. I liked Jerry’s (Julian Smith) performance; he felt like an HOA president who would measure my grass to check for compliance. The humor was hit or miss, but I would have liked to see more of him in the action (no more cheese sticks for him). He spent too much time out of commission, leaving me with the characters I like the least caught in all the action. However, I still think the side characters make the movie worth watching.
Some Rights and Wrongs
While defending one location isn’t an untraveled plot, HOAs that defend the suburbs from literal hellmouths is a very unique twist on it. I love the worldbuilding involved. Once I swallowed my stance on HOAs due to them being historically racist (see racial covenant), I was able to walk with the film. Introducing a mysterious hell pit opens up so many possibilities. Hold the Fort gave each entity special attributes, which reminded me of the Left 4 Dead video game. Some of the creatures were better than others (I’m looking directly at the bats), but the variety gave it extra flavor.
I like that there was a true sense of danger. People died early and often, which worked for raising the stakes, but not so much for the pacing. Still, I prefer people biting the dust rather than staying alive. What can I say? I’m bleak. Although I’m not sure how I feel about the fate of the POC characters. I found myself asking: “Are we still doing this in 2025?”.
The campy action movie vibes and humor worked to the film’s advantage most of the time. It felt like every character had a full clip of one-liners. Some of them did more talking than killing. I was surprised to see as many choreographed fights as I did, but I can’t resist martial arts (I am weak against the punches and kicks). The sight gags and side comments from the neighbors drummed up some chuckles. I found the most humor in the off-handed comments. Some lines of dialogue were funny the first time, but lost power by the second or third use (see “big ass wrench”). Again, the humor will vary for each viewer.
Blood, Guts, and Ass
Hold the Fort isn’t shy about blood. There are some digital effects, but they are mixed in with what seems to be mostly practical effects. We are treated to spraying blood, exploding heads, gaping wounds, and full-on monsters! There’s a creature in the third act that I wasn’t expecting (especially based on the drawing–a great sight gag). The make-up team did not disappoint. Horror fans who are tuned in to get bloody will get what they came for. Overall, Hold the Fort is worth checking out if you like horror comedies and campy action scenes. It gets 3 out of 5 big ass wrenches from me.
